Blossom
by Muutant
Summary: Anders returns from an escape and sneaks up to Karl's room to give him a gift. Anders/Karl. Written from a prompt on Kinkmeme.


Author's Note: So this was from a prompt on kinkmeme, that called for some hurt/comfort fluffy Karl love and Anders' first time with Karl. So here it is.

Warnings: Some mildly graphic wounds and smut. Don't worry the two are not related.

Original Prompt: "I have had a week of hurt. I think I need some comfort.  
I have also noticed that Karl keeps dying all the time. I think he totally needs some comfort, too.  
Therefore: Karl and Anders, having a cuddly fluffy moment! Perhaps after some... deflowering. Any takers?"

This is a two parter. Second part will be posted shortly and will include the naughty bits!

* * *

Three knocks. That's how he knows it's him. Karl opens the door to amber eyes and a toothy grin.

"Miss me?" Anders smirks, leaning against the frame of the doorway. Daring a templar to come by and see him out past curfew making eyes at an enchanter.

"Get in here you fool." Karl grabs a handful of Anders' robes and pulls him in and shuts the door so quietly so no one could suspect it was ever even opened.

"Oh! So hasty to get your hands on me? So you did miss me?" Soon Karl's chair is full of Anders, who is not so subtly crossing his legs, lifting his robes, and flashing a thigh. Ever the showman. Even when the show is just for an audience of one. _Especially_ then.

"What do you think? I was _worried_, Anders. Where did you go this time?" It's been a month since he saw Anders last. Karl didn't know if he was coming back this time. He was scared he wouldn't and that he would all at the same time, but he was back. For now.

"Away. I don't know. There were flowers." There is a far away look in his eyes, like he is still there. Lying in a bed of flowers as he twirls his hair around a finger. Karl swears he can almost see the reflection of the sky when he look into his eyes.

Anders reaches into his robes and pulls out a small book. The cover is worn, and the title illegible. Clearly not a book from the well manicured Circle library. Anders holds it out for Karl. He takes it gingerly into his hands.

"Open it."

The book falls open in Karl's hands and pressed between the aging pages of the book is a flower. Yellow. Fragile. Beautiful. The petals are fresh. Karl leans his nose to the book and inhales. The scent is exquisite. Flowers are something that have only lived in his withering memory for years. Now he had one in his hand. It makes him _want_. Want to see more. Want to feel more. Want to be _free_.

"I forgot what flowers smelled like. It smells like..."

Anders is on his feet now and so very close. Karl can feel the breath on his ear and heat of him on against his back. Anders breathes the word Karl is searching for into his ear.

"Freedom."

Karl looks up and Anders is standing right in front of him now. Breathing in deeply though his nose, desperate to get any scent of freedom he can.

Taking Anders in his arms seems the only thing to do at this moment. The only thing he has to give back. Wrapping his arms around the stick of a boy Anders hisses and flinches out of his grasp.

Red. Blood red is on the palm of Karl's hand that was just on Anders' back and Karl grabs him tight and spins him around to see blood soaking thorough the back of his robes.

All the blood drains out of Karl's face.

"It's not that bad Karl, really. It's just the norm. I'm used to it."

It was. It really was that bad. When had this become the norm? Torture with absolutely no healing to be seen. Karl had seen it countless times, healed hundreds of lashes, but that didn't make it ok. That didn't make it ok for this to be their normal.

"Who did this to you?" He knew the answer. He knew there would be no Justice to be found in knowing, but he wanted to hear it.

"Who do you think? Turns out Templars don't like to be outsmarted. Harold did the honors."

Fire licks Karl's palms and he seethes for a moment before he sees a flicker of fear in Anders eye's. Anders doesn't need anyone else to be scared of.

"Let me heal you." Karl sits down on his bed, smoothing the blankets softly, asking Anders to join him.

"It's ok, Karl. Really." Anders follows, but doesn't sit. Simply stands before Karl. Too proud. Or too _hurt_.

"Anders," he reaches up his hand and brushes the back of his fingertips across Anders' barely stubbled jaw, "Let me heal you."

With a sigh Anders flops face first onto the bed next to Karl. His face buried into the pillow, his back still covered in his sticky blood soaked robes. Too much blood.

"May I?"

"Yeah." Anders answer is muffled by the pillow, but clear enough for Karl to hear and begin. Sliding his fingers under the collar of Anders' robes Karl ever so gently slides it over skin, down over his slender shoulders to his back. The sound of the sticky blood soaked clothes peeling off Anders' skin is enough to make Karl's throat burn with bile before even seeing the wounds.

Then he sees it. A sword. The Templar insignia. Carved into Anders' skin, branding it. Words are there too, 'Property of Kinloch Hold'.

"Oh, Anders." Karl's hands hover and shake over the brand, sympathetic tendrils of healing magic escaping his palms as he takes in the mangled flesh.

"I know," Anders turns his head out to take a breath, "this is why I can't stop. They don't have the right. No one does."

This is why Anders keeps escaping. He can't be owned. He won't be. All the Circle does is treat them like tools to be honed and used when needed, keeping them stored in a pretty little tower. Marking them with their names when lost too many times. They are things to them. Nothing more. The marks on Anders' back remind Karl of this and light the fire in his heart that is so rarely relit. More often than not by Anders.

Long fingers hover over torn flesh knitting it together before even daring to slide against it. Skin and skin. Letting the magic pour into Anders as if he was taking his last dying breath. The red marks turn white, then slowly begin to blend and soon disappear completely as if they were never there.

The flesh is healed, but the scar will stay in him forever. They both know that. Any good healer does. Karl isn't a great healer, not like Anders, but he's at least a good one. A sympathetic one.

He slides down to lie beside Anders. Karl's fingers are quickly in his hair, combing through it, combing out the tie that holds it up. Golden. Like the sun. When he looks at it he can almost see it, almost feel it. To Karl, Anders is how he sees the world in the dark of the tower. Through the smell of rain on his skin, the sunlight in his hair, and the sky shining in his eyes. Anders is his window to the world, and he can't bear see him shattered like this. He needs him. He needs this.

"I missed you."

Karl desperately wants to say more. To say how he misses him, the _way_ he does. He misses him like he misses the smell of flowers and the feel of rain. But saying that feels too romantic, too dangerous. This dark prison is not the place for words of love. Or even for the feeling of it. This is all they get for now, and for now, it is enough.

"I missed you too." Karl can tell he means it. Anders doesn't mean a lot of the things he says, but Karl can hear the truth in this.

Anders doesn't need to talk about this, about the things they did to him, the marks they made in attempt to make them his. He would never belong to them. Karl would never let them own him. Anders needs to talk about the flowers, needs to be reminded of the beauty in the world, and Karl wants to hear it and show him what beauty he can in this cold, lonely tower where no flowers grow, and only one wilting flower lives.

"Tell me about the flowers, Anders." As he strokes Anders' hair he swears he feels him purr, the sound vibrating against his chest.

"They were simple and beautiful. Nothing like a drawing. I can't smell drawings, which really is a shame. Drawings would be much more effective if they appealed to senses. Do you think you could enchant a page with a scent?"

Anders was already going off on ridiculous tangents which, knowing Anders, was a good sign. A sign that he was still in there, still intact, still his Anders. Still trying to protect himself with humor or hare-brained schemes. Proof that there was still hope inside him to protect. Even if his choice of shield was ridiculous ideas and insufferable wit.

"I'll look into it." He wouldn't. But Anders would forget about his newest genius idea within the hour, so it was just the same.

"Fantastic. Hmm, what else? The girls made these cinnamon buns. Oh, Karl, these cinnamon buns, so hot and so delicious. I would have sworn their taste was the doing of demons."

So he did meet other people. Out there. Wherever 'there' was.

"Oh, there were girls?" Karl is arching an eyebrow and tucking a lock of blonde hair behind Anders' ear.

"Of course, there were girls. Have you seen this smile?" That smile. Yes. Beaming in Karl's face at that very moment. He had seen many other eyes light up in the tower at the sight of that smile, but lucky few had the pleasure of it being directed at them. For once, Karl supposed he was lucky.

"Oh yes. That one. How could they miss it?" Karl feels his eyes roll in his head and at the same time he feels his lips quiver into a smirk.

"Exactly." Fingers reach out, Anders' fingers, and they run over Karl's lips as if to say 'I see that smirk, Thekla. Don't try to hide it from me.' The fingers disappear and Karl's tongue flicks out and smoothes over his lips, tasting the little bit of Anders that was left behind, and just a hint of cinnamon.

"So what exactly were these cinnamon bun wielding demons like?"

"They were the daughters of the inn I was staying at. There was a younger girl, name of Molly, couldn't have been more than eleven. I don't think I ever actually heard her say a word around me. All giggles that one. Cute little thing. The other girl looked my age, maybe a bit older. Her name was Celia. She was quite...something." Anders laughs a nervous laugh then gulps loudly. And Karl thinks he knows what Anders about to tell him.

"Oh was she now? What kind of something?" Karl thinks he knows just what kind of 'something' she was. Just the kind of something that Anders needs. Karl just hoped he would be the one to give Anders that something.

"The kind of something that sneaks up into your room at midnight and climbs into your bed, bare as Andraste's ass." Anders' eyes flicker away and in the dark of Karl's room he can almost see a blush on Anders' cheeks.

"How was it?" The question doesn't hurt Karl as it leaves his mouth, but it doesn't feel good. He wishes it wasn't one he had to ask. He wishes it was an answer he could have experienced. An answer he could have lived.

Karl hopes she was good to him. Hopes that she was slow. That she kissed him and meant it, or at least made it feel like she did. That was all Karl wanted for Anders. For it to be good.

"I said no," Anders whispers, and it's the truth.

Karl's breath catches realizing everything that Anders' answer means. Realizing what questions it leaves that Anders is still in need of answers for. Questions that Karl can still answer. His breath catches knowing that there is still time.

"Really? Why?"

"Because it wouldn't last". Anders lips quirk that smile. Under the covers Karl feels hidden skin slide against skin and feels Anders' leg ask for entrance before linking together with his own.

"Because she wasn't you."


End file.
